Ordeal of a Plaything
by Bella Raiku
Summary: A darker spin on the classic hero's journey, a common peasant is forced into demonic servitude. She struggles to resist her own transformation despite violence, abuse, and horror. UPDATE: New chapters were written years ago but never submitted, until now.
1. Part 1

Chapter 1: Pawns & Minions 

"Find me a pretty paladin, my Bella. I'm bored." Villia's petulance grated like a dagger on exposed bone. With thoughtless sensuality, the succubus languorously stretched her arms and wings.

The warlock turned her head just fast enough to catch the demon's superior smirk. After so much time together, Bella knew that particular smile was caused by the sight of her own ruined body. "Soon. I'm waiting for the others to wake and join me in the Gulch. We'll find you something there. Just be patient."

The unholy creature turned sharply to face her warlock. Her slight snarl made her beautiful face something less than beautiful as the talons of her hand shot out and wrapped around necrotic flesh. By her neck, Villia dragged Bella's face close. "When will you learn not to put me off? When I don't get what I want, when I want it, you suffer." The succubus's glowing eyes narrowed. "Clearly you need a reminder."

Bella's body shook in familiar terror at the threat. Why didn't someone come round the corner? The demon always played the submissive minion while others were around. Where were the Orgrimmar grunts? Bella shrank back as much as she could, but when Villia's tainted lips met what was left of hers, she lost herself in the past.

_Panting and nearly exhausted, Mirielle Raiku hugged the rough bark of the old tree and grinned. Through the trees, she could finally make out the fabled buildings of the glorious city of Dalaran. With an almost palpable aura of magic, Dalaran was no disappointment. Before the war, Mirielle had endured tired story after third-hand story of the magnificence of the place. Every farmer, goose-girl, and cow-herd seemed to know what Mirielle ought to be doing with her magical potential. Before the Scourge, there had always seemed plenty of time… after the planting, after the harvest, maybe after Lemeo and she were wedded. Daily life had been full of promise for one of the prettiest mage-talents to come out of her small hamlet of Ander's Run in thirty years. ___

_But that was before the screams had heralded the Scourge's attack, and before the survivors had fled with little more than whatever was at hand. For Mirielle, it had been a well-used hayfork, for protection. She knew powerful Dalaran lay to the north-east, so she ran, to the promise of its protection. The mages there had to take her in. They'd be fools to pass up her potential. If she had to indenture herself, or even just run errands for some old mage with half her talent for the rest of her life, well… at least she'd still be alive. She stopped herself before she thought about what she'd just escaped, and about all the people she'd known who hadn't. She couldn't afford to grieve, yet. First, she had to get to safety. She had to get to Dalaran. There would be time to cry in Dalaran. ___

_A languid voice cut through her wool-gathering like a scythe in wheat. "If it's power you want, my beautiful girl, I can offer you more than anyone in THERE ever could." Mirielle whipped her head around so fast she got a kink in her neck. Before her stood a creature so exquisite in form that Mirielle felt like an old hag next to her. She knew instantly what she faced: A succubus demon that, with promises and hedonistic pleasures, excelled in seducing unwary souls into a damned existence. ___

_"P-p-power? No, I don't want power. I need protection. You can't offer me that!" Mirielle's cheeks burned with shame as her voice shook. She stood taller and gripped the shaft of her broken hayfork in what she hoped was a defensive stance. She took strength in Auntie's lessons that demons were powerless if you rejected them in every way. ___

_The demon's inviting smile widened as her voice took on more of a purr. "Of course I can protect you. I know the Scourge. Intimately." She leered like a harlot. "Join with me, open yourself to me, and it will be the undead that learn to run from you!" The demon extended her open hand, but the dried blood on her talons served to remind Mirielle of the price to pay for accepting the promises of demons. ___

_"No! I reject you, and your offer! Let me be!" Mirielle ran towards the silhouette of Dalaran, trying to outrun the chill in her heart. Villia only smirked as she watched her leave. ___

_"My willful little mortal," the demon sighed and turned, as the freshly-raised zombies of Ander's Run limped, trudged, or dragged themselves on their way past her to the attack on Dalaran. ___

_--- ___

_Mirielle was so tired she could barely think. There hadn't been time after being accepted into the city even to seek out something to eat; she'd needed coin for that, and her small purse had been left behind in haste. Head muffled in weary relief, she had maneuvered the winding streets with the help of directions from passing strangers. She had walked most of the way to the Magick School, when warning bells suddenly sounded all over the city. She'd managed to run the remainder of the way, and had been drafted to support the battlemages with her unrealized magical abilities. She'd felt bitter regret for her procrastination in developing her talent as her summoned drink was judged "weak but somewhat useful." ___

_She thought that that had been yesterday afternoon sometime. Since then, the hours had blurred together. Her head ached and pounded. Her stomach complained of three days without food, but she didn't dare stop. The grim-faced wizards she served hadn't stopped shielding or chanting or hurling frost or fire balls at the never-ending onslaught. The desperation she saw in their eyes steeled her resolve to keep going past pain and exhaustion. ___

_If any of the defenders had been fresh, they might have noticed the keening purple and green ball coming. If any of them had been looking at the sky, instead of the undead coming through the breach, they might have cried out a warning that might have saved lives. Instead, as the gigantic magic missile hit the refectory, the explosion caught everyone unaware. It killed most of the ones nearby, knocking people to the ground, covering many in stone and wooden wreckage. Dust billowed up and curtained the victims from one other. ___

_Mirielle was in agony. She'd been facing the building when it exploded. A part of a roof beam had come down across her calves, and she thought one of her feet was crushed by rock rubble. She couldn't move one of her arms at all. She cried out for help, praying it would not be the undead who found her first. Her prayers died in her throat as the dust parted to reveal a familiar form. ___

_"I didn't think you'd call for me so quickly, but I am here and ready for you, my pretty thing." The succubus' hooves on the cobblestones were eerily loud against the low moaning of the dying and the slow scrabble of the approaching undead. The demon sunk down, close to Mirielle's head, and brushed her hair away from her face with a gesture that felt almost loving. ___

_"No, please, not you" wheezed Mirielle, trying not to cough out the dust in her lungs. She raised her free arm in a warding gesture. ___

_"I will protect you, if you give yourself to me, now. I will take you away from all this, and clothe you in velvet and feed you sweet ambrosia and fill you with power you can't even imagine now. Say, now, you will come with me." The succubus reached her hand towards Mirielle's face with a triumphant smile. ___

_"No! I reject you!" Mirielle cried out, pushing the demon's hand away. The infernal skin was soft and smooth and warm, like an infant's. The sigh that escaped her luscious lips was impatient and not very enticing at all. She stood and turned, her pointed tail slashing Mirielle's cheek as she disappeared back into the gloom. ___

_Desperate, Mirielle grasped as the stones that trapped her. Her exhaustion left her only able to dislodge some of the smaller pieces. Over her own labored breathing, she heard a dragging sound. She froze, hoping to avoid detection. ___

_"Well, look who I found!" That cloying voice was wickedly delighted, and Mirielle quailed in dread of the reason for it. As the daylight began to fade and no one lived to light the lamps, the succubus returned, not alone. Mirielle stared in disbelief and then wailed, as Lemeo's reanimated body moved inexorably towards her, guided by the shoulders by the demon. ___

_Mirielle thrashed and screamed as the undead thing that had once been her betrothed sunk down over her and began to tear into her belly. She wept and tried to force him away with her arm, but the succubus wrapped her wrist with her whip and jerked it upright. With a quick punch to the back of the elbow, Villia broke Mirielle's arm. The sickly green sheen covering the zombie's skin seeped into the wound as Mirielle's innards were ripped and torn. ___

_As Mirielle's vision began to darken, she suddenly felt her arm drop. She barely saw the winged demon drag Lemeo back and tear him to pieces. Tears leaked from her eyes and her blood sluggishly pumped onto the ground around her as the demon wiped her hands on the robe of a dead mage nearby. She walked back over and looked Mirielle up and down. She nodded absently in satisfaction. ___

_"Now, Precious, this will be my third and last offer. I do wish you hadn't made me damage you like that, but you really should have accepted my offer the first time. I could have made your beauty immortal. Now you're nothing but offal waiting to die, infected with the Plague." The succubus pressed the edge of her coiled whip into the gaping wreckage of Mirielle's stomach. Already light-headed, Mirielle's eyes rolled into her head with the pain. ___

_"Give yourself… well, what's left of you," (the full lips frowned a little in distaste), "to me, and I will take you away from all this. I will protect you, and give you power a hundred times greater than what you've seen. Will you open yourself to me?" The demon reached her hand out for the third time. ___

_Defeated, Mirielle's arm lifted weakly from the blood-soaked rocks. "Yes," she whispered hoarsely, and then coughed up more blood. The demon crouched quickly next to her. ___

_"Ooh, sounds like he dug up some of your lung. Men, they're always too eager. You don't have much time left, sweetling." With a single motion, the demon slashed her own wrist open with her talon. Exultantly, she intoned the words of the Pact as her hot ichor dripped into Mirielle's open lips: "Drink my blood, and take me into you. With this act, you are mine, body, mind, and soul. You are mine now until I release you. My blood will remake you into a warlock worthy of me. You belong to Mistress Villia now, my broken beauty. You belong to me in every way, my Bella." The liquid blaze slid down Mirielle's throat like molten molasses. The burning agony spread outward, until every inch of her body seemed to sizzle in pain. Her vision went from black to crimson to white hot. It seemed to go on forever, until she felt her demon mistress release her into the oblivion of death with a last kiss._

Bella slowly came back to herself. It was over; she was back in the present. Villia was a few steps away, admiring her talons absently. She finally seemed to notice Bella and said, "Do you need more?" Bella shook her head as quickly as her weary state allowed.

"No, Mistress" she whispered. Villia smiled smugly and assumed a submissive stance. Bella pushed herself away from the rock wall in time to see a pair of Orgrimmar grunts march lazily around the corner. Bella steeled her voice for their benefit, as she knew Villia wanted. "Well, the day is early, and there's pain to dole out in Warsong. The others will have to catch up. What do you say, Villia?" Bella recited with effort, despising her role in the whole mockery. 

"That would be delicious. Perhaps you'll even find me a paladin." The succubus licked her lips in anticipation as one of the guards eyed her as they passed. "One with stamina. I'm bored with easy prey." Villia smiled nastily at her warlock.

Chapter 2: Fish Out of Water 

Mirielle Raiku woke under the rubble that trapped her. She floated out of the nothingness of her mind, slowly coming back to herself. Memories slowly returned next: Dalaran… Lemeo… Villia. The chilling horror of it crawled up her spine like a partially-squashed millipede, squirming in its death-throes. Her vision came into focus. She found herself looking at her intestines, heaped sloppily around the cavity of her belly. She quickly went to pile them back in, when she discovered her arms wouldn't move. In fact, her body didn't respond in any way. Although she tried to move her head, her mouth, her arms, her legs, she remained prone_. "HELP!"_ she cried inside her mind. Nothing happened. Trapped under the broken pieces of the refectory, alone but for the now stinking corpses around her, her panic exploded into hysteria.

Her thoughts, incoherent and desperate, skipped and writhed and struggled from one to the next. Flashes of memory, sometimes painful, sometimes pleasant, ripped through her mind in no discernable order: The smell of hot baked bread, standing in the embrace of Lemeo, petting Auntie's cat Fussy while Auntie griped about the rain, laughing in jubilation as she chased her playmates in a game of Tag. Time lost its meaning. Emotions and sensations blurred and melded, until her thoughts made no sense at all. The velvet smell of navy blue, the scraping sound of bubbling trees, the clammy touch of sadistic smiles… Mirielle was dragged back and forth through them and many others until she craved annihilation.

Bit by bit, the chaos began to drain away. Her racing thoughts slowed. She was again herself. She was still trapped inside her cold flesh, but at least she could again form coherent thoughts. _"calmdowncalmdowncalmdown calm… down… calm… down."_ She tried to take a deep breath to relax, but her chest didn't respond. She realized that it hadn't moved since she'd woken. She wasn't breathing. The terror reared up again, but she focused on remaining calm until it worked. She deliberately forced her thoughts to a dispassionate analysis of the situation, to keep the emotions at bay.

If she wasn't breathing, then she must be dead. But if she was dead, she should have been a ghost. But she was still inside her body, which meant something unnatural must have happened. Villia instantly came to mind. But her eyes were still focused on the green-tinted flesh of her guts, and she wondered if it was true that she was infected with the Plague. Auntie had had plenty to say about the wily lies of demons. Still, it seemed that the girl was out of options, so it was time to turn to her last resort.

"_Villia?"_ Mirielle formed the word experimentally. Nothing changed. Mirielle mentally grimaced and tried again_. "Mistress?"_ Immediately a presence seemed to seep into the air all around her. It was intimate and disturbing in ways Mirielle couldn't begin to identify.

"_Subservience suits you, my Bella. I knew you'd be a fast learner. You're going to keep me entertained for so long."_ An air of vicious gloating permeated Mirielle from the demonic presence around her. She tried to shrink from it, but it seemed to come from everywhere, without and within her. Her panic rose once more. Instinctually, she tried to sit up to run away. Her physical form remained inert. Her panic intensified as Villia's amusement washed over her.

"_What's happened to me?"_ Mirielle had planned to make it sound more humble, but Villia didn't seem to take offense. The response was instead tinged with arrogance.

"_You're so used to having everything so easy, my pretty plaything. You're going to have to toughen up if you are to serve me as I deserve. I don't have any use for frailty, my pet. So now, you will endure. You will endure whatever I want, for as long as I want."_ Mirielle became afraid, and Villia's presence pulsed with satisfaction. _"As I am sure you have figured out, your body has been infected with the Plague. It is now under control of the Lich King."_ Mirielle would have gasped, if her body had still been her own. The Lich King was a myth! A boogeyman from stories told to children to keep them in their beds at night! It just wasn't possible… but somehow, Mirielle didn't think the demon was lying. If there was a Lich King, couldn't such a monster be responsible for the Plague? If only the nobles had realized!

But, if the demon had put so much effort into claiming Mirielle's soul, what was she now doing under control of the Lich King? If she was so important, what was the demon doing, giving her up to someone else? Some part of it didn't make sense, but she hesitated to ask directly. She'd already been played herself totally into this creature's control by underestimating her; it was time to get cautious and find some footing.

"_Mistress, what am I to endure if I cannot move?"_ Mirielle formed the words carefully, shrouding her defiance and scheming behind an impression of frightened groveling. She was rewarded with a wave of smug mirth.

"_You will see, my naïve little project. Now, no more questions or I shall be very wroth with you. I will come to you when I feel like it. You will merely lie here and enjoy your helplessness. I know I will be."_ Laughter was the fading impression left in the sudden absence of Villia's pungent presence. Relief flooded Mirielle once more.

She knew not how long she lay there. The sky was overcast, the light weak. She thought perhaps the attack had happened the night before, but she couldn't be sure how many days it had taken her to die and return in this state. After a while, she realized it no longer mattered. Nothing she attempted caused her body to respond. Time meant nothing to a prisoner without options.

At some point, her grief surfaced. She finally allowed herself to mourn the loss of her family, her beloved, her blissful ignorance, and the peaceful satisfaction of her small, tidy life. She let herself wallow in self-pity for a while, railing against the fates for the ghastly turn in her existence. She allowed sorrow to wash over her for all that she had lost. Each feeling, she allowed a brief time, then let it go, like dust motes in the sunlight. Every time she did so, she felt a little emptier, but a little less overwhelmed by it all. Although her body still did not move, with every goodbye, she felt a little more in control of herself.

From time to time, sounds intruded in her melancholic reverie. She thought they were coming from the furthest parts of the violated city, perhaps near the Seat of the Council. Eventually, she realized these sounds were getting closer. Although a vague distress gnawed at her thoughts, she couldn't deny her curiosity. Her anticipation rose every time she realized the sounds were getting louder. Scraping, grunting, moaning, crashes… the more they came into focus, the more certain she became that she didn't want to know what was causing them. The distress was offset by a perverse flippancy. If she was truly dead, did it matter what was coming?

The undead had won. As the first one came into her limited vision, she realized the city belonged to them. Mighty, renowned Dalaran had fallen to the Scourge. Ironically, this fact violated her sense of the world much more than anything that had happened to her personally. If Dalaran had fallen, she thought, the end of the world had started. Her mind reeled with horror as the nightmare refused to end. Fetid, off-color corpses shuffled in her direction, in ones and twos, at first. Most of them weren't whole. None of them spoke or looked around. Every nerve seemed electrified with fear as they approached, and visions of being consumed by them danced before her eyes. At first, she watched them for confirmation of the immediacy of her grisly end, but slowly her mind accepted what she was watching.

They were rifling through the wreckage. They were slowly clearing rubble from the bodies. When one was cleared, they didn't do what she expected. They just dragged themselves on to the next one. What amazed her was when a few of them silently cooperated to move a big piece of lumber. Once a body had been freed, however, they just moved on in different directions. Although still alarmed, she began to wonder if she was actually safe from them when they reached her. Would they free her and leave her alone?

Although she was able to feel some pain as the rock and lumber were removed from her legs, her strange rescuers showed no aggressive tendencies at all. She wondered if it was a natural disinterest in already-dead flesh, or if something was restraining them from naturally violent natures. She dared not attempt to move in their presence, lest they respond to movement as they had in the attack. Not that she'd managed to move in the past, but this unexpected reprieve from destruction was too precious to risk.

Eyes still riveted to her midsection, she listened as carefully as she could, trying to identify how many of them had passed her and how soon it might be before she could attempt to escape. She worried when she felt a bit of humor at the impossibility of her chance for freedom; was she starting to go insane? This was no time for hysteria!

Out of the corner of her eye, a different kind figure approached. He stood out sharply in his unravaged robe, dark and edged in glowing sigils. His head and face were partially enshrouded, but as he approached, she could see the leathery but clearly still-living skin of his face. His eyes had a cruel glint, but he seemed almost bored and insulted. After surveying the scene around him, he moved to a corpse on the ground.

The small rod he produced was the size of the wands the Dalaran wizards had used, but it looked nothing like them. The handle looked like some kind of gnarled wood. There was a squishy ball of some sort held inside in a cage of bound finger-bones. He shook the wand over the body, and a thin kind of mucus sprayed out of the ball and onto the body. He yelled a word at the corpse that must have been magical (for it made no sense to Mirielle), and the body convulsed once. Quickly he yanked up on the wand, and the corpse rose in response. "SERVE!" he hissed, and the zombie, now standing, turned to him and bowed its head. It shuffled off past where Mirielle lay, and he moved to another corpse and repeated the ritual of reanimation.

She watched it over and over again, anticipation rising. Although she knew she shouldn't be excited about it, she was desperate to move as the others had. By the time he made his way to her, she fearfully craved his attention. She couldn't see his face any more, standing over her the way he was. She could only imagine that he was looking her up and down. He broke the silence with a tsking sound of disappointment. "What a waste", he grated to himself, and hunkered down next to her. He lifted her arm and swung it lazily, inspecting the motion of the broken elbow joint. He dropped it in disgust, turning his attention to her belly, and poked and prodded at the ravaged organs. He didn't seem to notice a transparent set of hooves appear behind him.

"_It's such a shame to make this one into fodder…"_ Villia's voice purred quietly. The necromancer's hand drifted to Mirielle's bosom, checking her dead flesh for firmness.

"Such a shame," he echoed dreamily. Repulsive lust dripped from every word, making Mirielle suddenly regret ever wishing he'd reanimate her.

"_No one would have to know, if you mended her and kept her for your own…"_ Villia continued, her own murmur laced with vile suggestion. The necromancer's touch moved to Mirielle's face and stroked it, tenderly. He traced the cut in her cheek.

"… Kept her…" he echoed. His thumb traced her lip, and then retreated into his robe. He produced a glass vial with dark crimson liquid contents. Mirielle heard Villia purr again, as he pulled the stopper and poured a little onto Mirielle's elbow.

He stroked the elbow, working the ichor into the skin. Mirielle suddenly felt tightness there, and she was certain that it had been healed. He repeated his mending on her legs and feet. Lastly, he moved his attention to her belly, pushing organs back into the cavity. When it didn't all seem to fit, he pulled a knife from his belt and started cutting away at her intestines. Mirielle screamed inside her mind. Villia's transparent whip, however, came into view, and Mirielle quickly directed her pleading thoughts at the demon. _"Mistress, please, stop him, please! Please!" _A feeling of irritation flooded Mirielle's mind as the necromancer, unaware, discarded the offending guts without a care. He heaped the rest in and closed the shredded strips of her skin over the top.

With a liberal dose of the healing draught, he massaged her stomach back into an approximation of the silhouette she had had before she was mauled. She could see scars and lumps, but at least the wound was closed. He continued to stroke her belly, and her skin crawled at his touch. Beginning to panic, she suddenly noticed that Villia's leg was gone from view. How long ago had her tormentor abandoned her?

A powerful voice barked suddenly, "Reaper! What's taking so long?" Not far away, it sounded like it was coming from the other side of the necromancer. He stood up sharply and turned.

"Nothing, my lord." His gravelly voice was submissive but surly.

"Then get that corpse up, and move on! Arthas has the tome; we'll be leaving here shortly." Whoever the other voice was, he was clearly used to being in command. It struck Mirielle that she heard a touch of murderous distaste in the soldier's words. She wondered why she cared, looking at her sunken belly. She thought she must be becoming hysterical again, if she was focusing on so many little, useless details.

"Yes, my lord." The necromancer's robe pouched a little at the ankles briefly, probably because he was bowed. She heard horse's hooves retreat into the distance as the necromancer seemed to turn back to her. He sighed; irritation and frustration were clear in the simple exhalation. He again crouched next to her, and pulled his knife once more.

"… Such a waste," he murmured again to himself, and quickly brought the point of his dagger to her face. Mirielle would have shrieked if she'd had body control, as he cut her eyes from her skull. Her vision went black as they were removed. After they were gone, he sighed again and his robe rustled. She felt a spatter, and he intoned the word he'd used on the others. Her body pulsed for the first time since Villia's kiss. Every part of her body became warm, and she felt it stand, without direction from her.

"SERVE!" he rasped with a lingering bit of regret. She felt her body turn, bow, and take a few hesitant steps. Bitterness washed over her as her body staggered away from him.

The wounds of her eye sockets seeped down onto her cheeks, and she comforted herself with the lie that she was able to cry for her lost vision. In truth, her ambling body was still no more hers than it had been under the rubble of Dalaran. She was just coming to understand what Villia had in mind, when she had commanded the girl to endure. As if summoned by the thought of her, Mirielle felt a hot, smooth hand wipe the moisture from her cheeks.

"You should be more grateful, my pet. I was generous to release you from your prison so quickly." The demonic voice was chiding, but it was obviously a front for gloating.

"_You were going to give me to that… that… pervert!"_ Mirielle's accusation flew before she could stop it. Villia's amusement evaporated, to be replaced with smoldering anger. Mirielle's spirit cringed with remorse for her lack of control.

"You are MINE, my impertinent little fool. I used him like I use all mortals: to get what I want. He would have raised you without wasting his own healing potion if I hadn't coerced him. NEVER forget that you are whole because I made you whole. And, you short-sighted little ingrate, who do you think influenced the deathknight to come pick a fight with him?" Villia's seething resentment seemed genuine. Mirielle couldn't bring herself to respond. She couldn't thank a creature for releasing her from a situation she was responsible for, in the first place. Mirielle could feel the heat of Villia's fury grow as it was fed by the silence until her words exploded from her in a rush. "FINE! Enjoy the silence, you blind cripple!" Her presence was gone like a puff of smoke in the wind.

The blindness was a bittersweet comfort. It walled her off from all the sensations of the world she had known before, and lost. Mirielle huddled inside her mind, immersed in a maelstrom of anger, fear, pain, regret, and self-recrimination. She couldn't help reliving the mistakes she'd made. She dreaded what nightmare was still in store for her when her body reached the rest of the Lich King's army.

Chapter 3: Over the edge 

The calling of night birds lulled Mirielle out of her misery. Though muted with distance, the sounds were unmistakable and striking for their normalcy. Early in their courtship, Lemeo had been shy to speak with her, and she fondly remembered him stumbling over his words as he tried to say witty things about the night birds and how the calls could be music for their meeting. The memory of that humid evening, where he'd nervously stroked the back of her hand with his rough thumb as they sat on a bench under the waxing moon, came back to her with vivid clarity. She cradled it longingly as her body stumbled on, pulled by dark magic to some goal she tried not to imagine. A vague unease tainted her musing as she fought down the urge to dream up awful possibilities. She could only hope that what was to come would be not as bad as what had happened to her so far.

Eventually her mind drifted to contemplation of Villia, and what few options she had left for handling the situation. Although the demon had left her free will, she had no ability to act. While it was possible that the succubus intended to leave her as she was, Mirielle still doubted that she'd put that much effort into this elaborate torture, just to get the chance to laugh at the helplessness of a zombie. A ferocious hope welled up. She latched onto the idea that, at some point, Villia would somehow free her from the Lich King's power. Mirielle vowed to accelerate Villia's decision... somehow. She still had time to make up a plan; the succubus had warned her not to call for her. Surely, Villia would wait until this lesson of hers was revealed before choosing to appear.

The loss of her vision, the boredom, her melancholy, and the rhythmic movements of her body all worked to lull her into a daze. She had no way of telling how much time passed; she could no longer see if it was day or night, and her body did not feel fatigue or hunger. It could have been hours, it could have been days since she left Dalaran. She tried counting steps for a while, but somewhere in the hundreds, her thoughts drifted. When she realized she'd lost the count, she gave up. Not even knowing where she was headed only deepened her sense of isolation and deprivation.

Her senses dulled, it was some time before the change had registered: Her body had stopped moving. When she realized this, she listened intently, trying to sharpen her hearing as much as possible. She had two simultaneous results: one, a horse huffed in the distance, and two, she realized that her left arm was warmer than her right. With overblown pride, she told herself that the warmth meant she was standing in morning or afternoon sunlight. If it was morning, she was facing south; if afternoon, north. The horse, though...? It could mean she was near a settlement of some sort… or, she realized with a sudden chill, that the deathknight was near. She hadn't been paying attention for so much of her journey, he could have been pacing her along with the rest of the zombie army, and she'd never had known! Angry with herself, she redoubled her efforts to hear something that would identify her surroundings.

She heard a quiet step behind her on what sounded like low grass or scrub. They must be far from the pine trees of her forest, maybe in some kind of meadow? Scant memories flitted in and out of stories of other villages and towns that might fit the description, but nothing concrete formed in her mind. She'd never been more than three days' walk from Ander's Run, before the attack. She'd never had to leave her little village. Her bread had always been bought or traded for by her neighbors. Her betrothed had lived in Ander's Run; her family had lived in Ander's Run. The village had boasted a blacksmith, farmers, a weaver, a wise-woman, even a small inn for travelers. Mirielle's past, present and future were all contained within the day's walk of its footprint. She'd never needed more.

In fact, there had always been plenty of reasons not to venture out of the safety of her small world. Over the years, Mirielle had been warned plenty of times of fast-talking strangers with pretty lies and bad intentions. Auntie had always been full of dire words against the wiles of beasts, the Horde, demons, strangers… but most often she railed on at length about misguided adventurers seeking glory and finding only bitter disappointment and pain. Mirielle could almost hear the querulous voice now: The world is a dangerous place when you're on your own. Safety in numbers. The only happy ending is a full house and hearth. Leave big cities to city-folk, there's work to be done at home. Let dream-chasing fools pass on through, don't let em get you alone.

Mirielle herself had never seen any reason to go, either. The tinkers who came through town were bedraggled and shifty-looking. The traders had always been haggard and desperate and overly grateful for good stew, a sale, and a bed behind walls. Truth be told, the only adventurers Mirielle had ever seen had only reinforced every dubious story Auntie had recited. Strangers brought trouble.

Mirielle could perfectly remember the night they had walked into her life and brought Auntie's stories to life. Her mind instantly conjured up the first one with startling clarity. He had made everyone uncomfortable, with his few words, his stillness, and those daggers that were too fine and strange to have seen kitchen work.

_She hadn't even meant to be in the inn that night. The damp was bothering Auntie's joints something fierce, though, and the days cooped up in the house under the heavy rain had started to take their toll on the girl's nerves. All in a rush, she'd packed up the half dozen loaves of innkeep Marilla's order and announced she'd deliver them herself and left the old woman sputtering in her bed._

_She hadn't meant it to be a long visit. She just needed a little time out of the close quarters of the house. A few minutes, perhaps a quarter of an hour. Once inside the Pale Leaf, however, Marilla wouldn't let her leave until her cloak was dried out. _

_Mirielle had always liked Marilla down to her bones. The feeling had been clearly mutual, right from the start. When they were children, the older Marilla had rescued her from an ambush by the Greener boys during a snow fight. Mirielle's loyalty and love were won that day, and although, growing up, neither girl had had much time to socialize, when they did meet, they were the best of friends. Few words had ever needed to be spoken of it; they were just two souls that recognized each other instantly, and had enjoyed the bond without wondering the why of it._

_That day, Marilla had read Mirielle's exasperation in the space of few minutes. She started hinting almost immediately how much she could use Mirielle's help that afternoon if she had the time to spare. Mirielle's thanks was in her smile as she squeezed the inkeep's hand and agreed. Auntie would take her afternoon nap and never miss her, though she'd say differently when Mirielle got back, no doubt._

_And so Mirielle found herself with the surprisingly relaxing role of a tavern wench in an empty tavern for the afternoon. She swept and cleaned and puttered around the well-loved main room, losing herself in the freedom from all that she knew. She smiled embarrassedly at one point when she found herself humming. She laughed when Marilla caught up the song and sang it with her in a rich alto voice that perfectly matched her stout body and merry spirit. They didn't make a beautiful duet, but it was enjoyable nonetheless._

_The contented hours had danced by without Mirielle noticing, or wanting to notice. She only realized it had gotten dark when patrons started to trickle in. By then, though, Mirielle was thoroughly enjoying her impromptu vacation, and threw herself into her role. She made Miller Ashson look at her anew by bantering easily with him, where before their talk had only ever been of wheat and prices. She became more daring with her serving until she almost spilled them on the skinner Brent and his apprentice. The ale was settling in, though, and the men laughed rather than cursed her._

_The spell of the evening drained from the room, though, when the first traveler entered. The silence bled into the room like a chill from a door left open, infecting everyone. It was the way he moved, the seriousness about him. This was no fop, no fool, and he exuded it without saying a word. The folk of Ander's Run didn't put on airs or go for fancy learning; they believed a man should be who he is and say what he means. This man was clearly the same. As he stood in the doorway waiting to be greeted, he made everyone wary. This was a wolf among hounds._

_Mirielle was still reconciling the reality of his strangeness when she heard Marilla's friendly but guarded welcome spoken behind her. If the man noticed a lack of warmth, he made no issue of it as he removed his sodden cloak and walked to the pegs by the fire where the other cloaks hung to dry. A chill leaked down Mirielle's back as she watched him move like a wiry predator. She yelped a little as her friend's hand softly landed on her shoulder._

"_Why don't you get a stew bowl and tankard for our guest, and then get to work on those dishes in back, my girl?" Marilla said in a low voice that carried. Mirielle knew perfectly well there were no dishes in back, having washed and dried them all less than an hour before. Relieved that Marilla was going to handle this man, she nodded obediently. After he had been served, she could borrow one of the spare cloaks by the side door and hurry back to the safety and familiarity of Auntie's petty quibbles._

_Her nerves were taut as she focused on not spilling any of the stew that tantalized with its aroma. She didn't think she could stand to let her friend down with clumsiness. She fervently wished she weren't so jumpy. She'd balanced more than this plenty of times, but … approaching the stranger made her skin prickle. Crossing the main room now felt like that time she'd raced across the rock bridge of the stream after the spring thaw, ending up on her backside in the water, doused and bruised. _

_She meant to deliver his meal and turn and go, but he caught her eyes with his and thanked her, politely and quietly. Wolf he may have been, but his eyes weren't hungry or cruel. She stammered a reply and turned to the kitchen before he could see her blush. She'd been too quick to judge him so harshly. Whatever he did with those wicked knives, they hadn't made him a monster._

_She almost regretted that she'd have to leave now. Curiosity about this man from the world outside bloomed in her head as she saw the front door open again. It coupled with surprise to fluster her as the second traveler came in._

_He was as different from the first stranger as the first was to her. Where the wolf was a common man made dangerous, this man was a gentleman hero. He wore the gleaming sword at his hip comfortably, and he moved with a grace that was surprisingly masculine and powerful. His clothes were fine and his face handsome, made even more attractive by the smile on his face and the joy in his eyes. His gaze swept over everyone in the room with an unconscious assessment, returning finally to the guest she'd just served. The gentleman soldier at the door smiled wider._

"_Shiin, my friend! How can you think of eating on a night as glorious as this?" his gauntleted hand swept in a brief arc to indicate the heavy sleet battering the thick glass of the inn's main window. He chuckled nonchalantly and strode over, unbuckling his wet cloak as he went. Though Mirielle suspected that this second man was just as dangerous, his comfortable manner and merry attitude was far less unsettling than the first. He handed Mirielle his cloak and took a seat on his companion's bench. Clapping his hand on Shiin's shoulder, he looked up at Marilla questioningly and pointed with his other hand to Shiin's tankard. She nodded and started to move to the kitchen as Mirielle hung the cloak up. Even sodden, she could tell it was made of wool far smoother and finer than she'd ever seen in her entire life. He must be a noble from a very large city, far from these woods._

_In a lower voice, she heard the nobleman say, "A bit of country ale to settle my stomach, then we go, my friend. Tell me, there was no trouble getting out?" The wolf shook his head, still eating, and the nobleman lightly slapped his shoulder, grinning with triumph. Though Mirielle was trying to remain unobtrusive as she stood by the cloaks, stroking the fine cloth, the nobleman turned his head and looked at her. His smile was friendly as he opened his mouth to speak. What he meant to say, though, she'd never know._

_The door opened for the third time, and what walked through the door turned the nobleman's joy to stone on his face. Mirielle whipped her gaze around to see what the trouble was. It was huge, for a man, and hard. He had eyes only for the wolf and the noble, and Mirielle thanked Fortune she was not between this brute and his quarry._

"_Knight-Lieutenant, you and your men have been accused of kidnapping by Lord Wymarc. You will hand over your weapons and be taken into custody." The arm that pointed at the wolf and the nobleman was huge and scarred and muscled, but if it scared them the way it scared Mirielle, they showed no sign. The pair stood as one, and pushed the bench out of the way… _

Mirielle's memory abruptly dissipated as her body lurched. Quickly bringing her senses to bear, she realized she was not alone. She felt her clammy skin crawl as she heard many other people moving around her. No, they were too quiet to be people. She'd only heard the like in Dalaran. She was surrounded by the walking dead. Zombies. The other victims of the Scourge had joined her, wherever she was.

Fervently she hoped that they weren't yet at their final destination. Maybe they were just consolidating before they all moved on again. The first scream dashed that hope to ashes. It was close, female, and terrified. The next one froze her soul. It was a child's scream, and she knew she'd never forget the sound when it stopped in mid-breath. Yelling and screaming soon filled the air from many different directions, punctuated by crashes and what Mirielle could only imagine were the sounds of desperate people fighting for their lives. What was worse was that she was getting closer to them. She knew she was going back into battle… as one of the attackers.

Horror turned her blood to ice as she realized she looked no different now than one of the monsters that had come into Ander's Run and plunged her into this nightmare. That night, had there been a man trapped inside the thing that had cut Miller Ashson down before her eyes? Villia had said that she was only coherent because of the demon blood she had drunk, but what if that was a lie? What if all the things that attacked had had people trapped inside their bodies? Is there a baker girl just like me being defended right now by her neighbors as we overwhelm the unprepared village? Will she end up like me, bringing terror to people just like her? Would all of her countrymen end up with her in the ranks of the Lich King's army? Was there truly no hope for Lordaeron?

She felt her clammy hands close around something warm. There was no denying what it was as the young man screamed in her face, his fingers frantically clawing at her arms. She desperately tried to jerk her hands free as her fingers tightened. She tried to scream as her victim began to choke. She sobbed inside her mind as his struggles weakened and finally ceased. She felt her fingers open, letting him fall to the ground. She howled in anguish as her body bent over the corpse and began to claw at him, tearing his flesh apart as her people had been torn apart. His blood was warm on her hands, coating her like bread dough without enough flour. She tried futilely to control her body, to wipe the grisly evidence off her hands, but she was completely helpless.

Her body straightened up, and she hopelessly begged it to stop, to fight the compulsion. It moved on, stumbling over some thing she dared not try to identify. The air was thick with terror and the smell of rotting flesh and butcher shop blood.

She felt a sharp pain on her shoulder as her body spun from the impact. It raised up a hand, though, and she felt her fingers close around a staff or shaft of some sort. Her hand jerked it forward, then suddenly back, and she heard a man grunt in pain as the wind was knocked from him. Pulling the tool to the side, her body reached out its other hand to her next victim and grabbed at his shoulder. She felt him kick at her knee, but it didn't give. With strength she'd never possessed, her fingers plunged deep into his muscle, closed, and pulled it free. He screamed in agony and reached out wildly for her face. Mirielle writhed inside her mind as her body refused to obey her commands. This desperate man clawed at her eye sockets, nose, and mouth as the fingers of her other hand straightened and closed in a spike-like formation which was driven into his belly. His scream curdled her blood as her hand tore up through the hot flesh of his innards into his ribcage. Her blood seeped slowly down her chin as he twitched and then died, impaled on her hand. Her body ripped pieces of his corpse free with her split and aching fingers. She recoiled in horror when her body used her teeth to tear and consume part of his face. She wished she had enough control to retch when she felt his flesh slide down her throat. It seemed an eternity before her body stood again and ambled in a new direction for new prey.

Mirielle sobbed inside her mind, audience to the onslaught of her unwearied body on these poor people who never stood a chance. Every time she closed with one, she fought for control of her limbs, without success. She began to cheer when they did damage to her body. Every time they tried to defend themselves, she prayed they would cut her down. She begged for deliverance from this horror. She begged for death. Girls, women, children, men, they all died at her hands as it went on and on and on.

If only the lieutenant and his man Shiin were here, she thought, they could cut me down. They could have managed it. _Why, why aren't you here to kill me? Why aren't you here to save me, to end this? _She imagined Shiin's knife cutting off her bloody hands, hamstringing her while the Lieutenant cut off her head with his sword. _Where are you now; why aren't you here?_

She felt a man break her nose and laughed and sobbed and cheered the frantic man on, hoping he'd defeat her. The victims were chipping away at her body with their knives and staves and clawing hands, but they wouldn't stop this nightmare. Didn't they want to live? Were they Villia's tools? A crazed notion overwhelmed her: This is what Villia had meant, had wanted, and they didn't want to displease the demon. They were all her pawns. It was all a sick dance for an infernal's amusement. Music sprung into Mirielle's mind as her fist caved in a child's skull. Mocking, discordant music and Villia's laughter. These people are dying because I didn't accept Villia's offer in the woods? Would I be eating pastries and lying on a down bed right now, if I hadn't displeased the succubus? Had it been all a lie? Would anything have been different if she'd given in?

Her body continued to move to the music that must have heralded madness. In time, she finally recalled where she'd heard the tune. It was the melody the tinker had hummed when he brought out this thing he called a "puppet": a wooden doll with strings that he held aloft and jerked to make it dance and bob. Even the tinker had power over her; he'd transformed her with his little novelty. He was Villia's agent too. And now she was just a murderous puppet for the Lich King. The dance would never end. After this town, there would be another, and another, and another, until she was finally cut down, and spent an eternity locked in the decaying flesh of her puppet shell. In her realm of darkness and blood and pain, she danced a dance of death with the villagers around her, jerking and laughing and crying and longing for the blades of strangers.

**Chapter 4: Release**

Floating, drowning, drifting in rank blood that seeps into eyes and nose and ears and mouth. The laughing lamb's skull fades in and out, caressing and cajoling with promises of starlit whispers and rotten fruit. A distorted cat, strange but familiar, stretches languorously on the maggoty body of a Dalaran defender. The pervasive blood cools into a thick, sweet pudding. Bones snap and run like hot wax. Daggers dance, just out of reach.

"_And how is my delightful distraction this fine, beautiful, clear and sunny day?"_ A cheerful voice, luxurious and disturbing, penetrating and filling and confusing. The words melt together but make no sense. They made sense, once, before… before… before something bad happened. Before strings around wrists wound and sang and broke promises of rain. Strings? Whips? Nothing makes sense. A touch, a hot, gentle hand stroking… face? Yes, my cheek. I have a cheek, and it hurts. Why does it hurt? Did something bad happen?

"…Bella? Bella!" The voice is soothing, goading, irritating; refusing to let me slip back into my viscous-sweet womb. It almost sounds… concerned? Why should I doubt that? Who is this woman… who am I? Am I Bella? Why is everything black? "Come now, my precious pet. Come on, that's right." The soft hand strokes my face, my arms, and my shoulder. Every touch reminding me that everywhere nurses a dull hurt, that I don't remember why. The past is dark and filled with lurking monsters. Better to be in the present. Right now, I'm standing, I see nothing, and there's a woman nearby. A woman with a voice I recognize. And slowly, too slowly to catch up to the horror that's already consuming me, I realize I don't trust her.

----

Alarm sucked Mirielle back into coherency. Hasty thoughts clamored for attention: _The voice, it's the succubus. She's back! Now is my chance!_ Mentally she scrabbled to get her footing, to ready her plan… until she stopped short as she remembered she didn't have one. Frustrated, she tried to play for time, hoping she could snap out of this head fog. She felt a vague unease, wondering at the source of her muddled-headedness; she was fairly certain she'd forgotten something terribly wrong, but terribly important. The seconds streaked by, forbidding any more woolgathering. It took her a moment to remember how the succubus liked to be addressed. Why was it taking so long to remember things?

"_M-mistress. You've returned! Uh, why did you go away?"_ Mirielle cringed at the stupidity of that question, but quickly tried to recover. She focused on how much she needed the demon here, to work on her, get her to… to… what? Panic flooded her, why couldn't she remember anything? How long had she been asleep? What should she say now?

"There, there, my plaything. Do you think you're the only thing on my mind? I'm very busy; I have a lot of important tasks." Villia's voice was filled with indolent arrogance and self-satisfied triumph. That seemed right for her; this was the standard behavior of the demon, that seemed fairly certain. She could feel her hair being stroked slowly. Why couldn't she see? "Now, did you learn your lesson, my sweet slave?" The demon tugged at a bit of her hair until she felt a sharp pain. Trying not to yelp, she wondered if Villia had yanked any out. It took a minute to sink in that she didn't jerk with pain. All in a rush, she remembered that she was a prisoner inside her own flesh. Panic changed to relief as she realized what she had wanted from Villia. Her resolve sharpened to a razor's edge. She forced down her distaste and plunged into doing what it was going to take to get what she wanted.

But how to answer? Whatever the lesson had been, it was part of that hungry blackness where her memory should have been. The proper response could have been anything. Safest to try something generic, then. _"Yes, Mistress. I won't be bad again." _The silence lengthened, told her she'd guessed wrong. She hurried to cover the breach before the demon suspected her lapse in memory and retaught the lesson. _"I won't doubt you again, Mistress! I'll do whatever you say! Please, I will make you so proud!"_ Would the demon mistake her panic for earnestness?

Waves of satisfaction gushed over her mind as Villia purred loudly and embraced her. The difference between her cold, clammy body and the demon's warm and soft one was mortifying. Revulsion and self-revulsion gushed over her like a broken blister, but she hastily hid it as she focused on making Villia happy. Whatever it took to be free of this prison. Whatever it took. Whatever it took.

"Oh, my tantalizing toy! I just knew you were SUCH a good choice. I am so very, very clever! Yes, my not-so-beautiful bird, you WILL make me proud! You realize now you are completely in my power. I can do anything I want to you. And will. You will amuse me for years. You will serve me well." Mirielle saw a chance, but how long to let her build herself into a froth? "You will be my shield and my companion and my tool. I will be the most celebrated-"

"_How may I serve you NOW, Mistress?"_ Mirielle dared the question, colored with a touch of eagerness borrowed from her desperate desire to be once more in control of her body. Perhaps if the infernal creature thought her ready enough, she would not think up some new, nasty lesson. Why did the thought of the unknown lesson evoke feelings of distress? Was the memory, not lost, but deliberately forgotten? What could the demon have done that was so awful? She split her attention, trying to balance piercing the past with playing the eager, desperate façade to the demon.

At first, the silence told her she'd mis-stepped, that her impertinence was going to cost her. Then she thought, what if the demon was only undecided about whether to believe Mirielle? If Villia was wavering, best to push her the way she wanted, before the demon settled on a different direction. "_I have so little to offer you, when I can't even move! How can I amuse you in this state?"_ No response, no movement at all from the succubus. Every nerve came alive as she let the seconds drag on, waiting to perceive the demon's reaction. What was she thinking?

Then she felt a strange, sharp, tearing pain at her mouth. She winced and tried not to let out any angry or displeasing thoughts. What had the succubus done to her lip? "You can still feel pain, my repugnant rhapsody." Each word was chilling, wrapped in the frost of inhuman malevolence. Dread screamed that things had abruptly gone very wrong.

Suddenly, a new pain, something stabbing and tearing at her nose. Mirielle wanted to flinch away, but her body did nothing. How had she blundered into making the demon attack, and how to pull her away from it? The thought of eventually seeing what was being done to her pretty face made her quail before she tried to wrench her thoughts back to how to make it stop. She wracked her brain for something to say to change the mercurial creature's mood around, but the pain was like a stick, goading her thoughts faster and faster in her head so that she couldn't stay focused. Visions of deep, bloody gouges haunted her mind's eye.

Distress became fright and then exploded into panic as the fiend went from hurting her to tearing into her. The claws came faster and faster as Villia's dissatisfaction rose. Then, abruptly, nothing. The pain stopped for few seconds. Without warning, there was a sharp crack, a whistling sound, and then felt something wrap around her neck. Petrified, she fruitlessly fought to raise her hands. The cord swiftly tightened around her throat, and then she was pitched forward, falling face-first onto the ground. Dirt pushed itself up her nostrils, into her teeth, and Mirielle realized with horror, into her eye-sockets. She shrieked inside her mind, still panicking instinctively with the fear of suffocating. She struggled to make her body move, twist, turn over, anything. She remained motionless, face-down, face buried.

Terror ignited inside her brain, costing her the battle with lucidity. Again adrift in a nightmare hysteria, time lost all meaning as emotions and thoughts ravaged her consciousness. Just as the intensity of her frenzy began to fade, there was a sudden weight on her back. It took a moment to realize she was feeling knees in her shoulder blades, a hand on the back of her head, and hooves digging into the back of her waist. The weight on her was Villia's kneeling body. Being pressed further into the ground only fueled the dying flames of her hysteria, thrusting her back into the crazed revel of horror and helplessness and surreality. The physical contact of her torturer galvanized a single, tiny thought deep within the chaos, that grew and repeated until it consumed all fear, all hatred, and all confusion. The simple thought had only one word, one goal: **kill**.

Mirielle's entire soul burned to destroy Villia, to break her and obliterate her and devour her and heap on her the abuses she was herself now suffering, but do it over and over and over again. The impotence of being unable to strike her attacker gnawed at her mind, destroying anything but the rabid need to annihilate. Villia's throaty laughter stoked her seething hatred white hot and kept it that way. The scorn in her voice sharpened it to a dagger's edge.

"Oh, you will kill, my revolting implement. You will lurk and feast and defile in my name, and you will long for more, before I am done with you. You will kiss my hooves and beg to end the lives of innocents. Hate me, yes, hate me, my easy prey. My hideous human. My stupid puppet. Feed me your worship, you disgusting, flesh-bound, rotting bag of slop. You disgust me." Villia underscored her last words by hopping off her fallen victim and kicking the side of her half-buried head disdainfully. And then her pungent presence disappeared, from all perception, inside and out.

With the sudden escape of her prey, Mirielle's wrath thrashed in the prison of her mind. Her helplessness and ineffectiveness fueled her rage, trapping her in a single, overwhelming emotion. It hemorrhaged, finally, into shame and self-hatred, bleeding vile thoughts of condemnation and the desire to die. The harsh reality of being completely powerless scalded her soul, sloughing off all illusions about her chance to escape this agony. The demon had been right all along; it was stupid and futile to have tried to resist. She was completely in Villia's power. She would never escape. She was doomed to whatever Villia wanted, even being forced to lie face down in the mud. She was trapped in a corpse in the mud, forever.

What if someone came by and gave her a proper burial? She tortured herself imagining what it would be like to be trapped inside her body in a coffin in the ground for the rest of eternity. How long would it take her body to decompose? Would this agony be over when her heart rotted? Her head? Would she then, finally, become a ghost? Would the Lich King control her then? Or would she finally just fade away?

The self-pity and hatred and wishing for death broke like a fever when her body shuddered and stood. Through the aching misery, she was reminded that her future was in the hands of others, and that a peaceful passing was unlikely, at best. Her countrymen would not save her. Zombie invaders were hacked to bits, not put in coffins and laid to rest. Villia would not save her. Villia put her into this in the first place! There was no one who would save her, and she couldn't save herself. She achieved a grudging acceptance of her fate, though it felt like drinking ale with ashes mixed in.

Villia's satisfied voice violated her private thoughts without warning. "_You are delicious_…." The succubus's presence was suddenly everywhere, fondling every memory, every thought, making it clear that there had never been any hidden notions. The demon penetrated every shadowy nook of her mind, leaving nowhere to escape. The intimacy of the contact exposed Villia's truly putrid soul, bleeding out her lust for suffering and despair. Bella's squirming revulsion only seemed to enhance Villia's pleasure. To the rhythm of the corpse's steps, Villia repeatedly forced Bella's struggling, horrified consciousness to comprehend the depths of depravity and brutality. More than just visions, Bella could taste and hear and smell and feel and see everything that Villia had done and intended to do, to her and every other mortal on this planet. She could never had guessed that there were so many ways to die, or that it could take so long to finally expire despite so much pain.

It seemed an eternity had passed before Villia, satisfied and oozing malice, withdrew from her mind. Even her death at Dalaran seemed a lifetime ago. All the passion, all the emotions seemed to belong to someone else. Someone who had not seen, not UNDERSTOOD, what her hellish fate was going to entail. Even the capacity to hurt seemed to be burned away, leaving only stunned numbness. How appropriate that she was still in this body that she could not claim was hers. How appropriate that she was removed from the immediacy of vision. She would float inside her own mind like a leaf, discarded from the tree, that had fallen to the surface of a still pool in the first chill days of winter before the snows. Before the whims of her infernal mistress brought her again to take her malicious pleasures. Until then, Bella was free to float in her tottering, rotting cage and try not to remember.

At some point in her repose, sounds intruded but were rejected. Whatever was happening outside her body, she didn't want to know. Surely she'd had enough? More sounds. And more sounds. She reluctantly allowed herself to identify rustling around her, not caused by her own shambling steps. She was not alone, not allowed to continue to experience nothing. Of whatever would come next, she had only cynical guesses.

"There's one!" The voice, rumbling and powerful, spoke of excitement and violence. More rustling, louder, closer, and Bella knew the voice had meant her. Her arms suddenly rose, her fingers flexed into claws, and her body lurched forward. A haggard, alien cry escaped her throat as she collided with her first attacker. Adrenaline flooded through her mind as a heavy, powerful object crashed into her side, staggering her. Physical pain exploded all over her skin as a scintillating sort of tingle enveloped her. The pain receded as molten agony replaced it. She felt as if every inch of her flesh was being incinerated. Her hands swiped empty air as a strange, frustrated bellow escaped her mouth. Again, the heavy weight came abruptly pounding into her chest, this time knocking her to the ground.

Was this happening, really happening? Was she outnumbered, outmatched, about to be destroyed? After giving in to the fact that she would never escape her suffering, was she about to be obliterated? What would happen when they succeeded? Why was Villia letting them kill her? "_Villia!_" The cry escaped her mind before she realized she was making it. Where was the demon? Another blow to her head, which made a cracking sound, snapped back, and made her stagger back a few steps. Needles of hot agony pierced her suddenly from everywhere. Her fingertips dug into something wet that made her attacker snarl in real pain.

What happened next made her wonder if whatever cudgel he was using had knocked her senseless, because instead of attacking, she was certain she'd just pivoted sharply and gone running as fast as her clacking knees and damaged legs could take her. A cry of, "What did you do THAT for?" went up behind her, but distantly and getting more distant. She ran on, confused and unsettled. Any sounds of pursuit grew fainter and then were lost. Small foliage broke across her legs as she plunged on.

"_You will be punished for addressing me by name, my repulsive pet. Soon_." The demon's whisper carried a hint of the gratification she intended to experience when the promise was kept. Although shuddering in dread, Bella couldn't help but be relieved that she was free of the attack. She berated herself for stupidity; how could she be glad to escape her closest chance for release since all this started? And yet, she knew as soon as she started cursing herself why. Mirielle Raiku had been stubborn since the day she was born. Everyone said so. She'd rather suffer than give in to death. It was so clear.. and probably one more characteristic for which Villia had selected her.

"_Yes, Mistress_." Bella said it to acknowledge the inevitability of Villia's sadism. One way or another, Villia would make her pay. It would just be easier to give her what she wanted. Maybe she would suffer less. Maybe.

In time, her body stopped running. In fact, it stopped all together. For a moment or two, it did nothing but stand wherever she was. Then, it turned and took a couple of steps. Strangely, it stopped, turned, and took a few more steps in another direction. Then it stopped for a third time, turned, and walked a handful of steps. Her body, for some reason, was confused. Was it lost? Had she run out of range of the Lich King's control? Was this Villia's doing? If it was, the demon wasn't saying. In fact, the demon didn't seem to be with her. Bella had no intention of calling her. The less of Villia's attention, the better.

Relief turned to disinterest and then to boredom, as her body tread over the same rug-sized swath of ground over and over again, for more than an hour. When a shout went up near by, it shocked her into alertness. These words, she didn't recognize. Would she be attacked again? A ghostly echo wafted over her mind, distressing her. _"…soon... ,"_ repeated from the memory of Villia's promise. Was this the punishment? Bella's spirit quailed and braced for the torture to come.

There was a loud roar, and huge, stinking arms wrapped around her. Her body thrashed in the steely embrace, to no effect. She was lifted off her feet, and the rocking told her she was being carried. Something wet and foul seeped into her hair and scalp from the body of her captor behind her. It stank like… like… like she did. Like the undead. No punishment, then. This was a reclamation by the Lich King of one of his wayward infantry. She felt some calm, although her body continued to fight the grip of the giant.

They'd only taken a half dozen steps before they stopped. She was struck sharply, between her shoulder and neck, and her body fell motionless. A quiet voice, melodious but somehow inexpressably ancient, began to chant something in a language unknown to Bella.

She felt a strange feeling, almost like a glow, begin to pulse all over her body. She felt it moving up her body to her forehead, being to coagulate there like cooling pudding. She became aware of a second feeling, outside her body, in front of her face. It was like she could feel the glow from this second feeling. The glow inside her and the glow outside called to each other, and she felt hers pulled strongly. Distressed that she might be losing something crucial, she instinctively fought to pull her glow in.

A phrase clearly spoken in surprise came from the voice in front of her, and the outside glow source was removed. Hands touched her face, and something dark and slick seemed to penetrate her skin. She didn't know how to fight this probing darkness, but she willed it with all of her might out of her body. This yielded another phrase from the one in front of her, softer and more thoughtful. After a moment, she was patted gently on the shoulder.

The person opposite her began a new chant, more forcefully and precisely. She could feel the same glow inside her body come alive. This time, though, instead of a second glow, she seemed to perceive a dark, tumultous energy being suspended in front of her face. Cold, clammy fingers pressed something hard into her forehead. Her glow shrank from it, but it came on with a hungry roar, penetrating the glow and consuming it. It raced through her veins, filling her with darkness from head to fingertips to toes. The more glow she lost, the more darkness filled her, the harder it was to think. It was as if the glow was consuming her, as well. She fought to stay conscious, but her energy faded, until at last, all she could do weakly was call for Villia.

As Bella was consumed, she heard the whisper one last time._ "….soon…"_


	2. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Delirium**

"…at you. A mortal agent? There is no need; the Scourge is firmly under our control. You waste time for little gain." Distantly she heard a male voice, unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. Might and thirst for violence emanated from him with every breath, though his tone was flavored with disinterested suspicion.

Words and sensations slowly washed over Bella as she came to. They slowly nudged her into dazed alertness, as she stared at the cold stone of the floor beneath her. Something about the oddness of the sight of the stones tickled her mind as she contemplated what answer to give. This dance with him was always precarious. That is why she always enjoyed it so much. It was always so exhilarating to feel how close he was to unleashing his savagery.

"Oh? It is already being whispered that the Lich King's subjugation is not absolute." She quickly raised a taloned hand to forestall his rumbling denial. "My Lord, if it please you, I already know how ridiculous these rumors are! Should the mongrel and his Deathknight forget their place, the mighty Nathrezim will remind them easily." She dared raise her head enough to display a small mocking smile and an eyebrow. Though the words were obsequious, the smile did not convey the same meaning. The enormous demon before her scowled in response. She quickly dropped her eyes. Her message, that nothing had been certain in this invasion, had been received.

Confusion muddled her pleasure. The last thing she remembered was being attacked in the forest… blind! Now she could see, now she was having a conversation with a huge winged demon who knew her and wanted only to beat her until he broke every bone in her body!

"Stating the obvious does not answer my question, Villia." Bella's heart went cold as it all snapped into place. Somehow, she was in the succubus' body! "Why should I allow you to waste any more time with your zombie pet when I have more important people for you to corrupt?" She licked her lips and mulled over the best way to wriggle out of his displeasure before his patience wore out. Obviously he was curious about how much she knew about the true state of affairs, or he wouldn't still be allowing her to speak.

Bella could only conclude that, as Villia sometimes entered her mind, she had somehow entered the demon's. And since Villia had not yet spoken to her, it was entirely possible that she was not aware of her "visitor." Caution and prudence seemed the wisest course, and so Bella calmed her thoughts and adopted a passive but attentive attitude in an attempt to become undetectable.

"My lord, I am not stalling; I meant to answer your question! After all, if something sparked these untrue rumors, then something is not going according to plan. It would be to our advantage to be equipped to deal with the unexpected. A never-before-seen tool might be just what the unexpected will require. The gain I work for has not yet been realized, but you know I gamble to win." A dangerous observation swaddled in submissive obedience was his favorite foreplay. It never failed to seize his interest.

The huge, bat-winged creature scowled and took a step and another closer, his eyes fixed on her as her ploy worked its way deeper into him. Bella recoiled as she felt Villia's growing excitement. "Gambles don't always pay off," he rumbled darkly. The succubus raised her head to show her insolent daring and met his gaze with her own. Her smile was inviting as she recognized that the talk was almost over.

"Send me where you would be wasted. My lord, use me." He reached her as she breathed the last word. She basked in the heat of his palpable and violent passions as he looked down on her. He took a long moment to consider her and her words, and the intensity of his full attention inflamed every part of her body and narrowed her mind to the anticipation of his sadistic touch. The force of her freed lust and hunger overwhelmed Bella and caught her up in it. She, too, thrilled as he reached his hand down and turned his arm in an arc to close his thick fingers around Villia's horns, his palm against the back of her head.

Together, Villia/Bella thrilled with exultation. As he lifted them off the ground with a quick jerk of his hand, they reached towards his face eagerly. He crushed their body to his as he smothered their mouth with a ravaging kiss. Tearing their lip with his fang, he sucked at their blood and growled deep in his throat. They grabbed harder at his face and pressed their body to him in a show of desire, but a moment later he cast them away like trash to fall in a heap by the door.

They fell painfully on their left wing, but it didn't feel broken. They looked up guardedly, for a rejection was not always a rejection with him. "When I want you, I will summon you" he declared distractedly, staring down at them. A good sign that he didn't turn his back on them. They licked their torn lip and rose gracefully (but slowly) to their hooves, eyes locked with his. Only when they were standing did he turn away. Definitely hooked, they thought with pained satisfaction. All the waiting and maneuvering was finally beginning to show a return.

They stroked the bruised wing membrane, the dull pain a shunt for their unfulfilled aching. Of course it was disappointing to not slake their passion, but seducing a fiend like Varimathras required a lot of subtlety, patience, and restraint. He wasn't stupid enough to be ignorant of their kind's manipulative abilities. What more delicious than overcoming prey who knew the game? And one of the Nathrezim, no less! One wrong word, one overstepping, and he could destroy them in a heartbeat. How could they resist such a temptation?

Chuckling to themselves, they decided to go check on their comatose mortal pawn. Sylvanas' Scourge had been subtle, but secrets had been Villia's traffic for centuries. Their autonomy reeked of opportunity, and Villia was not one to waste an opportunity. Having one stumble on her warlock was the most excellent stroke of luck. It had revealed how deeply the undead rebels had begun to break away. She was sure that the Nathrezim were turning a blind eye to it, celebrating the summoning of the great Archimonde as they were.

These last thoughts were strange and jarring to the slowly-rousing Bella. Villia's contemplation of her reminded Bella that she was separate from the succubus, and that these passions and thoughts were alien and external. She clamped down on her revulsion and shame and focused on a bland, emotionless state that would not arouse the demon's preoccupied attention. There was so much to understand of what she'd observed and shared; now was not the time to be detected.

The succubus ran without haste towards Sylvanas' hidden encampment. She doubted they would have decided to destroy her pet so soon, but as she reminded Varimathras, these mortals could be unpredictable. If the day's luck held, she wouldn't even have to convince them to break the Lich King's hold on her Bella. Surely the curiosity of the trapped consciousness would be alluring enough? The banshee certainly seemed savvy enough to understand that her followers were vastly unnumbered and that her ranks needed all the bolstering they could get. Still, a safe bet could sometimes turn into a loss. The succubus didn't intend to let mortal stupidity destroy her work.

Bella reeled with the enormity of her new comprehension of the forces at play in the world. The size of the Scourge, the terrible power of the Nathrezim Dreadlords, the invasion plan, Arthas' violated elf-woman and her quiet machinations to secure her "people"… it was almost too much! Her small life before Villia had been so idiotically ignorant. She had never learned words to describe how she now saw herself, and her actions before. A tremendous shame flooded her. She'd never needed to count past a baker's dozen, and now she couldn't begin to encompass the numbers of monsters in the armies of Villia's observations. The simple life of a baker had left her unprepared to cope with the information to which she had become privy.

Demoralized, overwhelmed, and miserable, she rode quietly in the back of Villia's mind as they raced through diseased woods. The air was brisk and the forest was hushed, almost cowed. Distantly, Bella wondered if she was looking at the same land she had traveled through in her own blind body. If so, she was almost sorry she could now see it. The grass wilted with more than oncoming winter. The bushes seemed blighted and more than one tree trunk wept a strange ooze. It was like the land itself was dying, if that was even possible. Bella mused that it was no more capable of protecting itself from the demons' violations than its people had been. Villia's thoughts had inadvertently revealed the extent of the subjugation of Lorderon by the Scourge.

"_Well, well, well, the beaten puppy decides it's not quite ready for the harsh world and slinks back to the den, eh, my little one?"_ The sudden words froze Bella with fear as all despondent thoughts were swept aside. Her melancholy, so alien an emotion to a succubus, had revealed her existence. Villia's disdainful psyche enfolded and immobilized and penetrated her. Bella was quickly stripped and helpless in the force of the succubus' attention. Her own memories were brusquely rifled through.

Annoyance and dark amusement oozed from the other mind when it was over. _"I'm surprised. You seemed like such a prudish chit, Bella, but I see here how much you enjoyed his attentions."_ Villia cruelly replayed Bella's merging during the audience with Varimathras. The shame again rose and burst like a pustule, making Villia's psyche laugh even harder. _"Oh, Bella, Bella, Bella, you have absolutely __no idea__ how much fun you have in store for me!"_ The succubus made Bella squirm by thinking back to the experience of some of her fondest but most depraved pleasures. The intimacy of Villia's personality forced a total lack of protection from the sensations, which battered, tantalized, horrified, aroused, and repelled in wave after wave. By the time Villia's body reached Sylvanas' camp, Bella was almost completely numb and unresponsive from overload.

The onslaught ceased as Villia turned her attention to the bustle before her. Villia's shared perceptions registered on Bella's traumatized mind, but made no impression. She felt nothing, thought nothing as the succubus wended her way carefully between the walking undead absorbed in their activities and conversations.

Nothing registered as the succubus stopped at a naked corpse of a woman bound to a rough plank table. The fleshless chin and lips, missing nose, and empty eye-sockets raised no more recognition than the sunken and scarred stomach skin. Around it stood more corpses, which, dressed and serious, prodded it and talked to each other, gesturing at the one on the table which struggled but could not free itself. It meant nothing to Bella that Villia remained watching this scene for some time.

The words that Villia whispered after a time to Bella's mind were lost to her deadened state. Even as the succubus reached her weirdly-translucent arm out to touch the greenish forehead of the prone body, Bella's conscious oblivion continued. The sinking, darkening feeling of sliding down Villia's arm seemed as perfectly acceptable as staying within. The gradual loss of vision was not mourned. A weak feeling of relief rose and then dissipated as the overwhelming presence of Villia's psyche retreated from Bella's awareness. It seemed time to release herself into unconsciousness, which she did without further emotion.


	3. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Sanctuary**

She must have been asleep a long time, but she couldn't remember. She'd been thinking of her mother, who was running at her and waving her arms, silently but so slowly that a single breath seemed to take a minute. Although she was screaming, the words were calm, slow, and closer than she was. They were so at odds with what she was seeing that they made the child realize she was still dreaming.

"It's time to get out of bed, my sweet." The woman's voice was coaxing, cajoling, loving. The little girl screwed her eyes up tighter and tried to wiggle further under her covers to escape it. "You've been lying here far too long, time's a-wasting."

"Nuh-uh," came the muffled voice under the blankets. They smelled musty and old, but they were better than the bitter winter outside. The trees outside rustled and moaned under the sluggish sleet.

Your friends are all waiting for you; don't you want to see them?"

"Nuh-uh". One of the other children poked a long branch through the open window. The end of it was just long enough to reach the little girl in her nest of blankets, but not long enough to nudge her very hard. She wriggled away from it and she heard branch withdraw.

The woman sighed. "How did I ever let you get so spoiled?" she mused to herself, but audibly. The little girl felt shame flush her cheeks, but didn't budge from her cocoon. "Don't you care about your friends at all? Don't you want to go play with them?" The little girl couldn't remember any of their faces, any of their names. They seemed very far away, out in the cold. They had each other, they didn't need her. Her pile of blankets shifted slightly as she shook her head to answer.

The little girl heard a sigh and then nothing more than the foul weather outside. She rolled over and slept once more, savoring her small victory.

"Wake up, now. There is work to be done. I need you to wake up now." A gentle nudge woke the child, who rolled away from the window and pulled the blankets up to her exposed ear. She curled in a tight ball and threw her arm over her eyes to block out the light. It worked; she couldn't see a thing. She felt another nudge, but it wasn't enough to dispel the fuzzy, warm feeling of being very near to sleep again.

The trees outside whispered and moaned, but the sounds were far away and of no consequence. The house creaked under the storm, but quietly. "Aren't you tired of sleeping?" In truth, the little girl had to admit that her backside ached from lying down for so long, but she knew it would go away if she just stayed on her side a while. It was better than going out in that storm and getting miserable all over again. At least her bed is warm. It smelled familiar, if a little rank.

"Nuh-uh." The child grunted, finding so many thoughts to be too much work to explain. She exhaled slowly and hoped to dream of holiday treats. Another gentle nudge made her whimper in protest.

"There's work I need your help for, and you've just laid here for WEEKS!" Auntie's exasperated tone made no sense. _Weeks? That's silly. No one sleeps for weeks. It had only been a few hours. The days just seem shorter because it's winter. _ Auntie herself always said that. If she'd been in bed for weeks, she'd be hungry, and she wasn't. She couldn't even feel her stomach, like it was, neither empty nor full.

"Nuh-uh" the girl replied. She shifted her arm to cover her ear, and heard nothing more. She couldn't even really feel the nudging. Drifting back to her dreams was easy.

The storm was loud outside, rattling the house and pelting the roof with rain. The child realized she was surrounded and under siege, all at once. "I fed you, saved you, took care of you, watched over you, and this is how you reward me?!" The nudges came faster now, but no stronger. Like a puppy, digging in the blankets, looking for a toy lost among the folds. _No one can get me out of bed_, the little girl thought with glee. She weakly snuggled into her small fortress and smiled where no one could see her. Auntie's voice was shrill, but far away. Words began to drift in and out of the girl's hearing, but she was able to ignore them. She daydreamed of bird calls and fresh bread and the smell of her mother's hair. After a little while, she back fell into peaceful dreams.

She could barely move her arms or legs, tangled as they were in the faintly fetid blankets. She was so drowsy that she could barely roll her head away from the weak light of the window.

"Bella, I just don't know what to do with you, anymore."

"… Don't call me that…" the girl whimpered softly. Icky feelings crawled over her skin. She couldn't even rub her arms to make it go away. She pinched her eyes shut tight, but Auntie's voice got closer.

"I put so much work into you, and now you're just wasting away." Auntie made a small disappointed sound and paced on the small wooden floor. Auntie was ALWAYS disappointed in her. The trees outside rustled with occasional gusts, breaking up the silence.

"… I don't feel good."

"Of course you don't feel good! You're dying!" Auntie's peevishness was as familiar as the smell of these blankets, but her exaggerations were worse than ever. "You've been lying in here for so long you've started to rot! The others won't even bother coming round anymore, they've all but given up on you! You're not even a curiosity to them any more! After I went through so much to bring you to them, they've moved on!" Auntie slapped the blankets, but the blow was soft and inconsequential.

"I have BLED for you, and you're throwing it away! You were the harbinger of things to come, and now you're nothing! You've made me a laughingstock!" More blows, like nudges, rained onto the blankets. The child blinked slowly, unable to make sense of her aunt's ravings.

"Where is the girl who fled from Ander's Run? Where is the girl of Dalaran? Where is your spirit? Get UP! Don't you want to live?" The exasperation and frustration in her gibbering seemed distant but important. Why was it important? Why did she care that she'd rattled Auntie so badly? She wanted to be proud, but didn't understand why. She managed to turn her head to see over the crest of her greasy covers.

"It doesn't look like you want to be free. It doesn't look like you want to live at all. You can't even sit up! Look at you! Fight!" Auntie flailed her arms, eyes round, mouth agape and full of yellowed teeth.

She wasn't really dying, was she? She felt sleepy, sure, and she could barely move, but was she dying? Wasn't dying supposed to hurt? Wouldn't it be alright to just fade away? To sleep, forever? Giving up wasn't so bad, was it? Was it? It was better than going out in the cold again, right…? She remembered the biting sleet, the bone-soaking rains, the vicious winds, and her fusty blankets and lethargy weren't so bad. If only she could move….

"Yes." she replied, surprising herself. She raised her head and looked into Auntie's glowing eyes. "Yes, I want to live." She felt the blankets tighten around her, binding her to the bed. The more she tried to escape, the stronger they seemed to become.

"Say it again!" Auntie screeched, pounding her scrawny fists on the coverlet. The girl thought she could feel the blow a little more now.

"I want to live!" Her voice was deeper, stronger as she kicked at the blankets, managing to move them a little down to the foot of the bed. Auntie shouted with glee and ran to the foot of the bed, trying to drag the blankets away but acting like they were made of wood.

"Again!"

"I want to live!" Bella screamed, pushing the blankets down to her navel. The ceiling above her came into view, swathed in cobwebs and dark corners that felt like pits of oblivion. A chill crept into her as she knew that something waited in that blackness. It had waited for Auntie to go, so it could have her while she slept. She had to get away!

Auntie's broken fingernails cut into her arms as she raked them down Bella's body in haste, trying to hook on the top of the blankets and yank them away. The fire of the scratches energized her, filling her with heat and strength. Bella kicked again at the blankets holding her feet, managing to catch one of Auntie's hands in the thrust. The crunching sound of the finger bent backwards was sickeningly satisfying. When had she started hating her aunt so much?

She jerked back and forgot the blankets as a branch cut across her vision. She recoiled from it as Auntie yelled, "Grab it!" Panting and spooked, she did. The bark came off in her hands in brittle flakes, but the wood underneath seemed solid. She turned to look down the branch.

Strangers were holding the enormous branch through the open window. Frozen sleet hammered at their cloak hoods, making it impossible to see faces, but somehow she knew these were strangers. They pulled when she had her hands around it, shifting her towards the window. The draft chilled her to the bone. Her nightshift tore like cobwebs, but somehow her dignity didn't seem as imperative as getting out of the house as quickly as possible.

Her body, still clinging to the branch, crumpled to the floor like a broken wooden doll. The window seemed a valley away suddenly, but she was moving towards it by the strength of her unknown benefactors. She gripped the branch though the nubs and broken offshoots made her hands bleed. The blood cooled and made frozen crystals as she was drug closer to the wet blizzard outside.

Auntie pounced onto the floor next to her, whispering closely with her rotten breath. "Don't tell them anything, Bella. Promise me, don't tell them anything. It's our secret, and if you share it, I'll make your life miserable for centuries!" Auntie crawled along next to Bella to keep her snarling mouth close to her ear as she whispered her dead-serious threat. "You tell them you don't remember anything. You understand? Say you do, Bella. Say you understand. Say it now!" A bit of spittle hit her in the ear as Auntie raved quietly.

"… I understand." Bella didn't understand, but she needed time to work it all out. She was almost across the floor now, and the strangers were reaching hands into the window for her. She needed time to work out all the shreds of what she knew. Somehow she thought these people would give her time, and a place to grow stronger. They were helping her, and although she didn't know why, she knew that she needed them enough to not worry about that now.

As they hoisted her through the window and into the sleet, she was too busy to see Auntie grin with relief.


	4. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Respite**

Her skin stung with a prickling, all over her body, like a shroud of nettle-cloth laid over her. The blizzard outside the window seemed to have stopped, because she couldn't hear the howling, and the frozen rain wasn't pelting her any more. She must have passed out during their trek in the storm. They must have brought her to shelter, for the only thing she could hear was a quiet, crackling fire overhead. They must have been very desperate for cover, though, for the air here was clammy and foul.

"… _Don't tell them anything…" _ The faint memory wafted in like lazy morning fog, and her sleepy mind snatched at it, trying to remember who said it and why it was important. The more she tried to catch it, the farther it seemed to recede. With a start, she realized she dreamed it, and that meant she was awake now. She sat up with a violet jerk of alarm and looked around.

Dusty, fitted-stone walls surrounded her, weakly lit by a few guttering torches in sconces near the cobwebbed ceiling, which was smeared with soot from the flames. The walls were pock-marked with large, deep recesses, which held long bundles. After a moment, she realized those bundles were the size of people. This was a crypt! The source of the nauseating smell made sudden and awful sense, and she raised a hand to cover her nose and mouth.

Bella was again bombarded with several realizations simultaneously. First: that she had control over her own body once more, second: that most of her fingers were gone, and third: she couldn't see the end of her nose at the bottom of her vision. She dropped her hand from her face and raised the other so she could stare at them both in the dim light.

They were appalling. Most of the bones were exposed in her fingers, because the flesh was gone and the edges were torn and grey. In better light, she thought her skin might look to even have a greenish tinge, like a rotten apple. Aghast, she flexed her fingers experimentally. They moved easily, but she could only feel the parts near her palm, where she still had flesh. Nearly numb with shock, she poked her scarred palms with the tips of her finger-bones and could only feel it in her skin.

Dropping her hands, she looked around once more in alarm. After a quick scan, though, she began to relax. As dreadful as this place was, at least there was no one here capable of hurting her. As far as she could tell, she was alone in this dark and wretched pit. She took a breath and exhaled in a sigh of relief.

Bella didn't know why she was relieved, only that she was. Her memories were a jumbled mess, and she didn't want to delve too deeply right now. She wasn't sure why, only that she didn't. It felt like the most important thing in the world to just sit quietly in this dank, silent hole in the ground and breathe. Tension slid away like butter in a hot skillet as she inhaled and exhaled, completely filling her lungs before emptying them. Willing herself not to think about her hands, she focused solely on reinforcing the feeling that the worst was over.

Small sounds, soft and moist, made her turn her head. A tiny and pale blue figure approached her from the darkness. It gurgled inquiringly and stepped into the weak light, where she could see it better. It had red and orange spikes protruding from its back and bulbous eyes which looked up at her curiously. It padded closer and poked her thigh with one finger. It grinned a single baby-tooth grin and began to jump from foot to foot in the dust on the floor. It kicked its feet out repeatedly in what she realized was a happy and awkward little caper to make her smile. With a start, she realized she was doing exactly that.

"He missed you" came a grating but quiet voice. Bella gasped and turned to a dark corner of the room she thought was empty. Panic sluiced through her veins as a man slowly emerged from it. In the dim light, it was hard to see more than his outline. He was hunched over and his hair was lank, but strength and confidence made him seem powerful and sure. There was no malice, no violence in his gaze. In his three little words, she heard depths of longing and relief. He moved fluidly and carefully, and for some reason that made her less afraid.

"Who…?" she asked, not really sure if she meant to ask who he meant, or who he was. The little blue creature had scampered back to his robe, gripping the fabric and gurgling up at him. Still watching him, she twisted to swing her legs from her niche in order to put her feet on the stone floor. The man's face was shadowed, his eyes dark. He reached down to stroke the spines on the little hunch-backed creature.

"Murky" he replied, his voice rich with affection and pride. He looked up at her and beamed. "I've taken care of him while you were sleeping." He straightened up and offered a hand, palm up, to her. It was grotesque, fingers shriveled and scarred. She glanced from it to his gentle face and took his hand after a moment. He stepped closer and helped her out of her grave.

"How long was I… sleeping?" She asked, to cover the flustered feelings he woke in her. This close, she could see that his face wasn't just shadowed; he had only empty eye sockets. He had once been handsome, though. He had once had the face of a good man, she was certain.

"About two and a half weeks," he replied casually. He hadn't let go of her hand, but instead held it gently. This close, he smelled vaguely of blood and soil. He smiled at her with such comfortable warmth that she didn't want to lose his closeness. She knew then that he'd protect her from anyone who wanted to harm her. It made her head spin to realize in the space of five minutes he'd become the most important thing in her life.

"Who ARE you?" she said in wonder.

Her question was disappointing, clearly. "Give it time; eventually your memory will come back. For now, you can call me 'Monsai Raku'." His voice held patience and reassurance. His fingers stroked the top of her hand lovingly.

"I can't believe you found me!" she blurted, near tears. "M… Mahn… Monsai" His name was strange in her mouth, but she'd say anything to keep him near. She could only remember disturbing dreams and unpleasant snatches of the past. In the warmth of his strange affection, those things seemed far away. She clung tighter to his hand and drank in the feelings he had for her.

"Nothing could keep me from you, not your father, and certainly not death." He replied with a smile. He pulled her hand carefully, using it to turn her body. She followed his lead and looked at some rough-stone steps leading up. She took a wobbling step forward, and he gripped her arm gently to support her. Together they walked towards the stairs.

"Death…? I'm… dead?" She gazed at his face, trying to read an expression in features that had no eyes. "Are you… dead, too?" He nodded, with a patient smile on his lips. "We're… dead." The fact was hard to accept, even though it explained so much: his face, her hands, the crypt. She climbed the stairs woodenly, mostly through his gentle pressure. She mulled the fact over in the near-silence as they rose. The little creature he called Murky climbed ahead of them by hopping with both feet up to the next stair.

Her companion raised his free hand to stroke her cheek lightly for a moment. "We're dead together," he corrected affectionately. He dropped his hand and turned to face forward, resuming their climb. She followed his gaze and got her first look at their surroundings.

It was a still, starry-filled night, though she couldn't see the moon. On the horizon were the silhouettes of pine trees. A bonfire was quietly roaring not quite twenty feet away on their left. It smelled like char and cooking meat. Between it and them, grave markers stood in stark relief in the firelight, accusing in their shadow-shrouded facelessness. There were no nightbird calls. A shambling figure near the fire turned, saw them, and approached with a hobbling gait.

Monsairaku's demeanor changed. Where before there was softness, now there was only power and control. Where there was affection, there was now only steely challenge. His grip on her arm tightened slightly, but not to a painful degree. He took a step forward while pulling her back, as if to put his body between hers and the man coming forward.

"You actually found what you were looking for, after all this time?" the stranger cackled in amusement. His high-pitched tone was not kind, and he stopped just out of reach of her companion. Bella stiffened in readiness, hoping she could make her body run if told to flee.

"Be quiet, knave." Monsairaku commanded in a low, gravelly tone. He reached out his free hand and showed it to the other man. Fire began to coalesce over the flesh. The other man backed up with a hiss.

"You don't have to be like that! I'm going!" He snarled like a whipped dog and began to slink back the way he came. Monsairaku guided her to the stone path that sloped away from the underground crypt out of which they had climbed, down a hillside on which they stood. The other man turned back suddenly and shouted at their retreating backs. "You better make sure she reports for evaluation in Deathknell! That's the rule!" She heard his faraway tone turn spiteful with glee. "Otherwise she'll be hunted!" Bella shivered at the thought of whatever THAT meant.

"You never have to worry again." The soft tone emerged once more in Monsairaku's quiet reassurance as they stepped through a broken-down gateway arch. Ahead, a few dilapidated wooden buildings slumped together on either side of their pathway, lit by torches on poles near doorways. She turned and smiled uncertainly at him, and was rewarded with a beaming smile from him in return.

Serious once more, he guided them to the first building on their left. Together they stepped up into what might have been a schoolhouse or meeting house. There was no furniture, only a few other people talking quietly amongst themselves. The room was well lit with sconces, and she could see them clearly. They were hideous, corpses all in tattered and faded clothing of every station. Most of the faces were mutilated.

A strong man's voice called out Monsairaku by name. He stepped forward and led Bella to the speaker. It had been a balding man, but now was missing half his lower jaw and had straps over its eyes. It, too, was hunched over but somehow managed to appear strong, not weak. His tone was authoritative without being imperious, inquisitive without being offensive. "Who have we here?" Monsairaku didn't answer. He instead turned to Bella and smiled with pride and triumph.

"It's time to choose a new name, to signal our new life." Everyone in the room gazed at her, all of them, waiting. Some seemed bored, some seemed interested, but they all stood in silence and watched her.

"… _Don't tell them anything_…" The words were barely more than a whisper, barely more than a hiss. In the silence, they seemed to echo. Bella inhaled sharply, looking around her for the speaker. Every face she checked merely waited, gazing at her in the thickening silence. She realized none of them had spoken, none had heard it. The voice was for her alone. Her feeling of safety evaporated like a soap bubble. She blurted the first thing she could think.

"Bella."

Chills went up her spine and bumps rose on her arms as she looked around desperately. She hadn't meant to say that name! What if it was one of the things she was supposed to hide? Whatever woman had given her that dire order, she was not one to cross. Her skin prickled as she waited for the consequence of her failure.

Some smirks, some smiles, some eyebrows were raised, but the room did not suddenly explode or evaporate. Monsairaku patted her hand and said pleased, "My Bella." The man who had called them over reached a hand out to her.

"Bella, I am Shadow Priest Sarvis. I am in charge of evaluating those who are newly broken from the Lich King's control. Please give me your hand; This won't hurt. I don't know how much you have been told, so let me try to explain our … situation… to you while I work." Monsairaku pulled her hand under the outstretched one. She felt prickling warmth in the shadow priest's palm as it glowed over hers. He took a deep breath and distractedly spoke as would a teacher repeating himself for the third time.

"We have been freed from the control of the Lich King by our new leader, Lady Sylvanas. The Dark Lady guides us in our war against the hated Scourge and the holdouts of humanity that dog our every step." The glow faded and he sighed and pointed at a woman in the corner.

She had strange, glowing eyes and blue-tinged skin. Her red and brown dress was ornate but tattered, the rich cloth faded and the sleeves frayed. She held herself with dignity, though her shoulders were stooped and her hair greasy and off-color. "Greetings, child." She called, triumphantly. The other people in the room turned away, resuming their conversations. Monsairaku helped Bella walk to this new woman. Although she was fairly certain she could walk on her own, his arm was comforting in the chill of that terrible whisper.

When they reached her, the woman smiled, but with pride and superiority. Her gaze was possessive but not complimentary. "I am Venya Marthand, your new trainer. I can see you are still young in the ways of the warlock, power still eluding your grasp." Her tone grew stern and reproachful. "There is no strength in ignorance. Knowledge is our greatest power." Her voice grew lusty; her face was aglow with memories Bella did not want to share. "Through its application, we can control the chaotic magics and beings of the void, bending them to our will." Her lecturing tone returned. "Your power is little now, though I suspect already you sense the possibilities. Even the dead might feel alive, with that power coursing through us." The woman waited, grinning, as if hoping to see in response a hunger for what she promised.

When greeted with only stoic silence, Venya sighed with disappointment and continued, nonplussed. "I will show you how to bind a servant to your will, but first you must bring me three skulls of the rattlecage skeletons near the abandoned smithy." She pointed past them to the door. Dismissed, Monsairaku pivoted to guide Bella back into the night.

"A warlock" Bella's companion mused out loud. He looked down at her and smiled. "This will make for an interesting pair." She smiled with relief at his acceptance of whatever judgement had been laid on her as they stepped into the night together.


End file.
